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1 August 2012Wangapeka Word-Play Wangapeka Educational Trust I roll the words on my lips and tongue, savoring the magical meanings revealed anew in the shifting patterns of dancing wholeness, this arising knowing that is all of us. In Māori, Wangapeka means ‘valley of the ferns’. I’ve also heard it translated as, a ‘learning corner of the area’. Given the presence... -
20 September 2012with warm thanks to Karen and Rob and many others June 2006 Wangapeka Study and Retreat Centre Inevitably these things will happen more as one gets older. This year, hardly a week goes by without receiving a request for prayers. Please pray for someone. Please hold someone in your prayers. To tell you... -
20 September 2012Download Common Sense Retreat We are pleased to announce the availability of a free PDF, e-book version of Tarchin’s recently revised ‘Commonsense Retreat’ ‘Common Sense Retreat’ is a small booklet introducing some broadly practical considerations that will help support a solitary retreat. It was originally written in 1984 to help introduce people... -
26 September 2012Ten simple exercises that will help balance your energies and bring more vitality into your life. They are presented in a direct way, unaccompanied by any theory, for people who just want to get on with a practice that will strengthen the body’s natural resistance to illness and speed the... -
26 September 2012Click the Manual image to download the book This Karunakarma manual contains essays, contemplations and practical exercises to support a community of friends in the Dharma. Explore the tools for a healthy and happy community. The Karunakarma Series are published as A4 coil-bound manuals. Introduction and Table of Contents for: Sangha Work Essays, Contemplations... -
28 November 2014In 1977 I was invited to Ottawa, Canada, to be resident teacher in a newly formed dharma house. I shared the house with seven other people. One of the residents was a bank manager during the day and she often came home from work, complaining about the problems arising in... -
28 November 2014The following words were triggered October 30/06, through staying with Brian and Loraine and playing with their children, young Thomas and William. Young, I was often driven by fear. Dreams of black outline hells annihilation, torture, abandonment, a dark lattice of shapeless gut twisting lowgrade terror. Survival strategies of bravado and bluster and angry striking and withdrawal and hiding conceit and... -
6 December 2014How do we learn? How do we grow into mature, loving, wise, competent human beings? Does our vision of our place in the universe actually correspond to the biological realities that shape us? Do our religious and moral aspirations harmonize with our mechanical and energetic interactions with the rest of... -
11 December 2014People today seem to be tragically addicted to seeking future goals and results. We idolise planning and striving. It applies to virtually every realm of human endeavour. Results driven education, healing, eco-activism, industrial/military applications, business and so forth. Wise investment now in order to harvest a big gain later on.... -
11 December 2014Woven throughout any overt subjects that we may teach are hidden attitudes and approaches, embodiments of living, that flavor everything that we say and do. Though we may not intend to do so, inevitably we teach what we are. We demonstrate beingness – for those with the sensitivity to ‘see’.... -
5 January 2015This is an excellent exercise for healing physical problems. It is also very good preventative medicine. As you become more familiar with it you’ll find that you can do it in the midst of daily activities. It’s easy and pleasurable. The most difficult thing is remembering to do it when... -
6 January 2015This exercise is particularly good for people who are feeling depressed. The first time you do it, get some soap bubble blowing equipment and spend a bit of time blowing bubbles. Observe the bubbles very closely and feel the way they float.   Part One Now imagine that you are inside a large... -
14 January 2015 When we feel centred, we feel good. Gone is the sense of being crowded or rushed. What remains is a lovely spacious quality that is profoundly healing. Try this exercise while you’re sitting. With a bit of familiarity you’ll be able to do it while standing or even when walking.  Sit... -
23 January 2015‘Dharma’ is a rich and bounteous concept. Common translations give us words or phrases such as truth, teaching (particularly spiritual teaching), natural law, law of nature, phenomena, process and ‘thing’. It’s difficult to grasp in all its dimensions – as is our life. What does it mean to ‘live a... -
26 March 2015From our Archives: This article was written for the 2010 Newsphere. Dear friends, both old and new, Wangapeka is one third of a century old. Many changes have happened in the world since it was established. Children have grown up. People have moved. Adults have aged, retired, and some have died. Today Wangapeka... -
19 September 2015It has been nearly 10 years since the body of Namgyal Rinpoché dissolved into the wider life of the planet. His dying spurred many of his students to begin teaching and to share their understandings of dharma. Throughout this time, I have been asked by a good number of people... -
30 October 2015Yesterday, I was asked a question about transforming negativities. As often happens when an interesting theme is raised in class, my largely unconscious thinking process continued in its mysterious workings, merging many streams of experience, and this morning these thoughts emerged. Young children know about wrestling. Do you remember what it... -
26 December 2015I’d like to begin by briefly sketching out some personal events that led to the ideas in this essay/poem. In my early 20s, while at Kalu Rinpoché’s monastery near Sonada, India, I participated in an ancient ceremony in which I and a few other young men, in the presence of a community... -
11 April 2016May 22, 2010 Written in response to a request from Chani G. to support a community in which a mother of three has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. If there are a group of friends that care for each other and wish to meditatively support each other it can be good to... -
23 May 2016Loving Kindness at Wangapeka Here is a meditation practice based on a broad love of nature. It could be adapted to any location. Include the categories of creatures that live in your environment. Slowly read through the text letting the words merge with a relaxed appreciation of your breathing. For example,... -
9 October 2016The knowing that I am is the behaviour of the ocean of being which is all there is to know by the knowing that I am. Like understanding the weather, there are countless factors, some large in form, or long in time, some of micro dimension – transient sparks, so many factors communing together making our life and living. Most... -
6 July 2017Download as a pdf May this be for all of us! Blessed with a life-giving intuitive sense of belonging, A capacity for radical inclusivity and a cellular knowing of home; Breathing refuge as living presence, An immeasurable communing of self and other, I prostrate in all directions to the magnificence of creation. At the heart of all... -
28 May 2018© started in 2008, finished 2009 We were recently watching an animation by Drew Berry which glimpses, in wonderful detail, the processes of replicating and transcribing DNA. It’s as if you had a microscope capable of magnifying ten million times. Seeing the rhythmic choreography of molecules dancing together their life stories,... -
3 July 2018Portrayed as a radiant buddha figure, Vajrasattva represents the primordial natural state of pure and total presence – the essence of body, speech and mind activity of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. As a meditation, the primary purpose of Vajrasattva practice is to remove the obstacles obscuring one’s perception of the...